On March 10, 2015 the Economic and Financial Affairs Council agreed its’ negotiating stance on a proposed regulation on a European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) under the Investment Plan for Europe announced on November 2014. This will allow the Presidency, on behalf of the Council, to start negotiations with the European Parliament as soon as the EP has agreed its own negotiating stance. The aim is for an overall agreement to be reached by June, to enable new investments to begin as early as mid-2015. Council negotiating stance on the EFSI regulation >>> The Council agreed that the fund would be built on €16 billion in guarantees from the EU budget and €5 billion from the EIB. To facilitate the payment of potential guarantee calls, a guarantee fund would be established that would gradually reach €8 billion (i.e. 50% of total EU guarantee obligations) by 2020. Following a decision by the Board of Governors of the European Investment Bank (EIB) small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) across Europe should be able to benefit from the first funds from the new EFSI before this summer. The money can be available for SMEs from the European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the EIB-Group, which will cover the risk of transactions with intermediaries providing additional finance to SMEs and small mid-caps until the main EFSI is in place. The EFSI should be up and running by September 2015 at the latest. Infrastructure projects may also benefit from similar pre-financing arrangements before EFSI is fully set up. KEY MEASURES IN IMPLEMENTING THE JUNCKER’S INVESTMENT PLAN An Investment Plan for Europe is an attempt [...]
On February 25, 2015 the European Commission published its’ Energy Union Package. It includes the following documents: ENERGY UNION COM (2015) 80 final A Framework Strategy for a Resilient Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy In this Communication the Commission sets out, in five interrelated policy dimensions, the goals of an Energy Union – and the detailed steps the European Commission will take to achieve it, including new legislation to redesign and overhaul the electricity market, ensuring more transparency in gas contracts, substantially developing regional cooperation as an important step towards an integrated market, with a stronger regulated framework, new legislation to ensure the supply for electricity and gas, increased EU funding for energy efficiency or a new renewables energy package, focusing European R&I energy strategy, reporting annually on the 'State of the Energy Union', just to name a few. > Annex > Citizens' summary PARIS PROTOCOL COM (2015) 81 final The Paris Protocol – A blueprint for tackling global climate change beyond 2020 A Communication setting out a vision for a global climate agreement in Paris in December 2015. The vision is for a transparent, dynamic and legally binding global agreement with fair and ambitious commitments from all parties. The Communication also translates the decisions taken at the European Summit in October 2014 into the EU's proposed emissions reduction target (the so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, or INDC) for the new agreement. > Annex > Staff Working Document > Citizens' summary ELECTRICITY INTERCONNECTIONS COM (2015) 82 final Achieving the 10% electricity interconnection target. Making Europe's electricity grid fit for 2020 An Interconnection Communication, setting out the [...]
The first meeting of the Central East South Europe Gas Connectivity (CESEC) High-Level Group is another step towards creating an Energy Union (February 9, 2015 in Sofia). The Commission was represented by Vice-President for Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič and Commissioner for Climate Action & Energy Miguel Arias Cañete. Representatives of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia were present. Participants agreed: on an Action Plan with concrete deliverables to accelerate implementation of the identified interconnector projects and the optimal use of existing infrastructure (will be adopted by early summer 2015); to establish a regional priority infrastructure roadmap and advance its implementation in order to develop missing infrastructure and improve security of gas supplies in the Central Eastern Europe and South Eastern Europe region; that ultimately each Member State of the region should have access to at least three different sources of gas [the notion of redundancy, known from IT infrastructure, applied]. But the main problem is still there – it is to find alternative suppliers, and with about two-thirds of Eastern Europe’s gas coming from Russia, more needs to be done; in addition - Bulgaria, Romania and Greece have reached an agreement for the construction of the so-called Vertical Gas Corridor. [Tweet "other five countries of Central Europe were not present at the meeting: Poland, the Baltic States"] CESEC High-Level Group has to be congratulated on an excellent and timely initiative. CEEP sees this development as an important step towards the integration of the gas market in Central South-Eastern Europe, and we regard it as a component of laying the foundations of the Energy Union. But, on [...]
In a few words
We represent the widely understood Central Europe energy sector (electricity generation, distribution and transmission, renewables, gas, oil, heat generation and distribution, chemical industries, etc.), universities and scientific institutions.
